There is no Tired compared to Rider-Tired. A Day in the life of a young rider

There is no Tired compared to Rider-Tired. A Day in the life of a young rider

Date posted: 10/09/2018

A Day in the life of a young rider

You’ve been up since 6am. Got to the yard, fed all the horses and changed their rugs. Chucked the horses out into the field, mucked out all stables and ended up half digging one out completely because that bloomin’ pony won’t stop weeing in that one corner….You’ve swept, put 4 ¼ slices of hay out into the field, in clay mud deeper than your ankles. Then the water buckets, the **** water buckets! You always try to fill up the buckets to a level that you can lift them without your shoulder feeling as though it may pop out of its socket. You’ve never got this level right.

Then you go home, or then you go work or school.

Some time in the afternoon you head back to yard. Head back out to the field to bring in your most prized possession, and begin to groom. Bingo wing workout like no other – clay doesn’t come off easy. Then the mane and tail. The **** mane and tail! How does this hair get so knotty? Maybe I should try that No-Knot Xtra Shine’n’Slip neon blue spray they’re now selling in Countrywide. That’ll do the trick.’ You sling on the saddle which seems to feel like at least 15kg, finish tacking up and drag the mounting block across to your steed. Now the real hard work starts; the riding. Puffing and kicking and pulling and squeezing your way around the arena until you’re red in the face, although the animal underneath doesn’t seem to have made a sweat. “Something’s not quite going right here” you think, but the show must go on! You heave yourself off of your stallion, legs like jelly. Take the saddle off, which now seems to feel like 25kg and the rest of the sticky, sweaty tack. Now for a small treat for all of that hard work…where are those semi-stale chocolate hobnobs I left in the tack-room?

You may then also go home/ do errands/ do the school run/ go back to work. The list is endless of NORMAL things people normally get tired from doing in the day.

By the time you’re stirring the evening feeds, your arm is completely numb. You fill up the stable water buckets; yanking on the hose to make it reach them and to relieve your poor shoulders of another ‘Hheeaavve’. You march around the yard doing your final chores of the day, 4th hobnob in hand, your muddy Dubbarys feeling increasingly weighty. Finally! The horses are in the stable; they are fed, watered, 1 of them has (kind of) been exercised and they all seem alive and well- excellent! The sheer effort it takes to maintain these animals day to day gives you a bizarre sense of fatigue-filled, half-resenting pride every evening. Until it all begins again tomorrow.

I would like to remind you here that all that has been previously described is actually on top of all the normal chores and daily doings a non-equestrian person undertakes in their day and it is voluntary! For those not in the equine world, no I am not joking. To those in the equine world – quickly! If you’re reading this, get some sleep!

Interested in pony fun and games of your own ? Visit The Pony Club to find out what’s available in a Centre local to you.